.\" -*-nroff-*-
.TH POWWOW 6 "09 Oct 2007"
.UC 4
.SH NAME
powwow \- telnet protocol client for MUD playing
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B powwow
[
.I host port
]
|
[
.I definition-file
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
.B powwow
is a client program that implements the telnet protocol, adding some bells
and whistles to the standard
.B telnet(1)
communication utility, mainly intended for playing multi-user games
such as
.I MUDs (Multi User Dungeons).
.PP
.B powwow
is either invoked with
.I host
and
.I port,
and then does not save any definitions, or with a
.I definition-file,
which is supposed to contain various definitions as well as the name
of the host and the port number. If the definition-file does not
exist, the user is prompted for the host name and port number which
are saved in the new file. The definition file can be edited with any
text editor, and is updated whenever a definition (action, alias etc)
is changed.  If the environment variable POWWOWDIR is defined,
.B powwow
will look there first for definition files (and create new ones
there).

Lines that begin with `#' are assumed to be special commands to be
processed locally. Help is available with the #help command. There is
also a more detailed manual somewhere. Notably, semicolons separate
commands on a single line. To send a literal semicolon, prefix it with
a backslash.

.B powwow
also supports the MUME editing protocol for editing texts locally. The
name of the editor is taken from the environment variable POWWOWEDITOR
or EDITOR. "emacs" is used by default. For text viewing, POWWOWPAGER
is searched, then PAGER and "more" is used by default.

If the first character of the editor is `&' (which is then skipped),
the editor is assumed to run in another window and powwow will run
concurrently with the editor without waiting for it to finish.

.SH AUTHOR
.PP
Massimiliano Ghilardi <max@Linuz.sns.it> and
Gustav Hållberg <gustav at gmail dot com>
are the people that added many new features to an existing client,
.I Cancan
and transformed it into powwow.
Mattias Engdegard (f91-men@nada.kth.se) was the original author of Cancan
but many other people have contributed at least as much, including
Finn Arne Gangstad (finnag@pvv.unit.no), David Gay (dgay@di.epfl.ch),
Gary Dezern (gdezern@satelnet.org) and Lai-Chang Woo (vivriel@scs.com.sg).

powwow moved to hoopajoo.net in 2005, and is now maintained by
Steve Slaven <bpk@hoopajoo.net>, please send bug reports and
patches to that address.

The powwow WWW page is: http://hoopajoo.net/projects/powwow.html

.I powwow
was originally inspired by Peter Unold's
.I Tintin
client, but now only bears a very remote resemblance
to the original. It aims to be a simple but very interactive client,
and contains features that are interesting for "immortal players", in
particular on MUME, though any mud player should benefit from
.I powwow
as well.
.SH FILES
.br
.DT
.ta \w'$(POWWOWDIR)/*\ \ \ 'u
powwow	The binary.
.br
$(POWWOWDIR)/*	Definition files (aliases, etc)
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.DT
.ta \w'POWWOWEDITOR\ \ \ 'u
TERM	Your terminal type.
.br
POWWOWDIR	Where powwow will store and search for its
.br
	files by default.
.br
POWWOWEDITOR	Name of editor to use
.br
EDITOR	Alternative editor
.br
POWWOWPAGER	Name of pager to use
.br
PAGER	Alternative pager
.SH SEE ALSO
telnet(1), more(1), emacs(1)
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
Most diagnostics are self-explanatory. Some are even more
self-explanatory than others, namely those who crash the program.
There is a diagnostic report called `core' which is not currently in
human-readable form.  The messages from
.I powwow
are generally prefixed with a `#' to separate them from output from
the remote host.
.SH BUGS
.PP
Are you kidding?

